Y 



HOW BIRDS PASS THE NIGHT. 



OU must get up very early if you expect to find 

 the birds still asleep ; they go to bed as soon as 

 it is dark, and have had their first breakfast long 

 before you are awake. 



No one need call them; the first faint light in the 

 east finds them up, ready for a long and active day. 



If you should happen to go out before the birds are 

 awake, or should startle them in the evening after 

 they have gone to bed, where do you think you would 

 find them, and how would their beds look ? 



Many of you, I have no doubt, think of them as 

 sleeping all night in their nests, cuddling close to each 

 other, and warmed and protected by their mother. 

 It is true that for two or three weeks of their lives 

 young nestlings sleep in the nests or holes where they 

 have been hatched, and chicks which have no nests 

 hide their downy bodies under their mother's wings ; 

 but this lasts but a short time, and after the young 

 birds leave the nests, at the age of two or three weeks, 

 they never again sleep in a bed. 



No stretching out of tired limbs on comfortable 

 mattresses, no soft pillows for tired heads, no tucking 

 in, and no one to say " Good night." All these com- 



